Friday, October 18, 2013

What Lake Shore Boulevard used to look like in Toronto

Lake
Shore Boulevard, known mostly for snarled traffic and concrete falling
from above, is actually one of Toronto's most interesting — dare I say,
even beautiful — streets. Should you doubt such a statement, take a
night drive along this perfectly urban corridor and report back. Start
at Cherry Street in the east, curl under the Gardiner and then shuttle
across the city tucked under the expressway above until you emerge just
before Bathurst and eventually see the water to your left, now rolling
along a gently winding promenade that delivers you at the Princes' Gates
such that you're forced to acknowledge that this boulevard remains
aptly named.
It may no longer continually hug the water as it once did, but there
remain long stretches that run in close proximity to the shore, offering
views of Toronto that are unmatched on any other street in the city.
Various infill projects and the arrival of the Gardiner Expressway have
re-routed the road over the years at the expense of a residential
element throughout its central portion, but it's still the main drag in
Mimico, New Toronto and out to Long Branch. When it hits Mississauga the
Boulevard tag is replaced with Road, before it dips closer to the
water, a tree canopy forms, and the houses get more and more opulent on
the way to Oakville.
When the Gardiner was built in the early 1960s, Lake Shore changed
profoundly. Aside from the more obvious alterations — its effective
burial under a highway and the complete reorganization of Sunnyside — the eventual demise of the motel strip that once stretched from the the mouth of the Humber River to beyond Park Lawn Avenue remains one of the most significant.
In its heyday, the area boasted some 20 motels outfitted with neon
signs, heavily advertised colour TVs, rotary phones, unheated swimming
pools and, of course, sprawling lakefront vistas. A five minute drive
from Sunnyside, this was a legitimate tourist hub: close enough to
downtown Toronto to make an easy day trip but with the requisite
distance to feel like a vacation destination. When the east-lying
amusement park was bulldozed, the writing was probably on the wall, even
as the majority of these transitional spaces endured through a
crime-riddled period in the 1970s and '80s before eventually giving way
to the condo boom still chugging along today.
Oh, those old motels along Highway 2. The Beach, Shore Breeze,
Rainbow, Casa Loma and Casa Mendoza, The Palace, Cumberland, and
Hillcrest (to name only a few) are all gone now, which is less cause for
sadness than a sort of inquisitive nostalgia. What was this place by
the lake, so bustling with activity when the city itself was notoriously
dull?
Running its southerly length across Toronto, Lake Shore has
witnessed, more than most streets, the curious play of of centripetal
and centrifugal forces that shape the city as we know it today. Who
knew, for instance, that the still elegant-looking Palace Pier condos
would eventually play anchor to a densely populated high rise strip?
The story of Lake Shore is the story of Toronto, as only makes sense
given its crucial location. Let us consider this as we zip under the
Gardiner and wonder after the context of our surroundings.PHOTOSLake Shore Road near Oakville (looking west), 1925